Dr Chung Tai Chiu 趙頌泰醫生

Information

Date

19 July 2014

Interviewed by

Ben Fielden

Language

English

Audio Edited by

Ben Fielden

Venue

The Vallance Centre, Manchester

Chung Tai Chiu was born in Xinhui, Canton, China in 1951 on the same day as his father arrived in the UK. When he was three years old, his mother followed his father to the UK while he remained in China with his grandmother until 1963 when he came to Manchester to be with his family. As a child he lived in Moss Side, Manchester and attended Claremont Road Junior School followed by Rusholme Secondary School in Moss Side. After finishing school Chung Tai Chiu worked in the family Chinese Laundry business helping his parents. According to Chung Tai Chiu, their laundry was the last Chinese laundry to close down in Manchester in about 1990.

Chung Tai Chiu went on to study medicine, graduating from the University of St. Andrews (B.Sc.) and Manchester University (MB ChB.). As a doctor Chung Tai Chiu considers himself to be very hardworking. Most of the time his is very patient and tolerant, and he believes he has the necessary sense of humour to be a good general practitioner.

Between 1984 – 2014 he practiced at Brunswick Health Centre as a GP. He says he always got on well with the doctors and staff of the other three practices in Manchester. When he first started working at the centre he had less than 1400 patients but built the list to over 5600 over a few years and numbers have remained at this level for the last decade. At the same time he also worked as a casualty clinical assistant and a Pool Police Surgeon for Greater Manchester Police resigning a few years ago. For many years he has also covered a number of the city centre hotels and theatres on a private basis.

In 1984 he set up The Chinese Health and Information Centre in Manchester to help those Chinese who were experiencing problems with communication with their GPs. Since then many other similar centres have been set up in the UK using this model including London. In 1986 he set up a young GP Principle Group with some other young doctors with the aim of mutually supporting each other as young GPs in Central Manchester.

Dr Chung Tai Chiu has been a member of the Manchester Local Medical Committee for many years and he has also been a member of the Central Manchester Ethic Committee for about 10 years.

Now that his five children have all grown up sufficiently and are all working themselves, Chung Tai Chiu says he is looking for some new stimulation instead of being a box ticking GP in the UK. For this reason in 2014 he took early retirement from general practice.